Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hilda bounded ahead of me and leapt onto the Jericho Wine Barge before I could stop her, sabotaging my attempt to delay the inevitable.
I’d not slept well yet again last night, going over and over in my mind what Jack had said in his letter, cringing at the assumptions I’d made and dreading the prospect of having to face him.
But I knew I had to do it. I owed him an apology, however uncomfortable a prospect that was.
While I might initially shy away from dealing with some challenging situations, I always got round to facing them eventually, the voice of wisdom in my head, which incidentally sounded suspiciously like Nana Rose, reminding me that problems always ended up bigger in the imagination than they actually were in reality.
I waited for the Jericho Wine Barge to stop rocking, half expecting Jack to emerge from the cabin at any moment, then realised there was no point as Hilda started spinning joyfully around on the well deck like a boy racer doing doughnuts in a car park.
With a growing sense of trepidation, I jumped on board myself, only just managing to stay upright due to the Irish wolfhound-induced waves.
‘Here goes,’ I muttered under my breath, and knocked smartly on the door of the wine bar cabin, my nerves jangling.
I stepped back, waiting for the door to open and trying to practise in my head what I would say when it did.
Sorry for making the wrong assumptions would be the best place to start, but then what?
Carry on and pretend everything was going to be completely normal?
But having never experienced ‘normal’ with my neighbour, I wasn’t sure what that would look like.
Although judging by the fact that the door was still shut tight, it didn’t seem as if I was going to get the opportunity to find out any time soon.
Maybe I should try the other cabin door.
There was a chance he was ignoring my knock in case it was an overly keen customer clamouring for him to open up.
With Hilda thundering around on the deck, it would be a natural conclusion to jump to.
I hopped back onto land and walked slowly along the towpath towards the stern of the Jericho Wine Barge, still rehearsing what I was going to say.
Unfortunately, Hilda decided against following in my footsteps.
With a graceful leap, she took off from a chair on the deck and jumped onto the roof of the boat, bounding along parallel to me.
‘Hilda, get down, now,’ I said, torn between laughter and horror at her new-found boldness.
She’d never jumped up like that on the Oxford Bookship and it was typical that she’d decided to do it for the first time on someone else’s vessel.
I really hoped the roof was in a better condition than the boat’s engine.
As I approached the stern, a tousled head poked out of the rear cabin door.
‘What—’ started Jack, but before he could get the rest of his sentence out, Hilda arrived at the end of the roof and came to a sudden realisation that she very much did not want to make the leap down onto the deck, even though it was no further than the height she’d already scaled at the other end of the boat.
Her eyes widened, her tail went between her legs, and she did the doggy equivalent of digging her heels in as she started to quiver.
‘It’s alright, Hilda-girl. You’re okay,’ I called out, in as reassuring a tone as I could muster. ‘Do you mind?’ I asked Jack, gesturing to the deck.
He emerged fully from the cabin and did a double take as he looked up and saw Hilda looming above him.
‘Stay,’ I shouted, in case Hilda decided to use him as a staging post on her way back down onto the deck.
Jack stopped right where he was, one pyjama-clad leg in front of the other.
The flaps of his pyjama shirt fluttered in the breeze, and I was irritated with myself for noticing the top three buttons were undone, similar to my daydream.
He was actually more dressed than he had been when I’d interrupted his DIY, but the just-out-of-bed look somehow seemed more revealing.
‘That was for the pooch by the way, but nice to see that you take direction,’ I said, trying to make a light-hearted comment to dispel any awkwardness between us.
Jack looked at me and raised a questioning eyebrow.
I felt my features flood with heat as I realised I’d achieved the exact opposite of my intention.
There was nothing to do but style it out.
‘I’m coming aboard,’ I said.
‘I’ll get the gangplank,’ said Jack, but I didn’t want to wait. I clambered somewhat inelegantly onto the deck, scraping my shin against the gunwale on the way and winced.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked.
‘I will be once we’ve got Hilda back where she belongs,’ I replied. Bruises were a small price to pay as long as my dog was safe. Jack reached out and briefly took my hand, helping me to stand up straight.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked again.
‘I’m fine,’ I reiterated. ‘Sorry for all this.’ I gestured towards Hilda and then back towards myself.
His expression brightened. ‘You read my letter then?’
I realised he thought the apology was because of that and hurried to correct him.
‘Yes, but the sorry was about Hilda’s and my intrusion.’
‘Oh.’ His face fell again.
I shook my head. ‘This is coming out completely wrong.’ I took a deep breath and looked directly at him.
‘I’m sorry my dog is currently cowering on your roof, and I’m sorry I’ve invaded your space so early on a Monday morning.
But what I’m most sorry about is that I leapt to conclusions about you.
They were wrong conclusions, and I’m ashamed I allowed my own fears and a chunk of malicious towpath gossip to prejudice me against you.
I’m not proud of how I’ve acted.’ It was hard to tell from his expression what he was thinking, but I ploughed ahead anyway.
‘You shared something really personal with me, so in turn, I’ll admit I’m a worrier at heart, and you unfortunately happened to turn up when I was already pretty anxious about my position on the Oxford Canal.
I jumped to the worst-case scenario about your business, and I was helped into continuing to think that way by Liam, for reasons of his own.
To be honest, I’m really ashamed of myself for allowing someone else to affect my judgement, and I’m a big enough person to admit it. ’
Jack had been leaning against the stern rail throughout my speech, but how he stood up and nodded. ‘Thank you. I appreciate your candour.’
‘What…’ I started to ask. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting, but this understated response wasn’t it.
I realised I wanted, no needed, to hear more about what was going through his head, to know whether he really accepted my apology, and what he thought about me now.
He must have read that in my features because he added, ‘I’m glad we’ve had this chat and I’m sure there’s more we could discuss at a later date, but at the moment, I’m more worried about the fact that your dog is apparently trapped on my roof, and she might start to panic properly if we don’t get her down soon. ’
‘Right. Yes, absolutely.’ I felt stupid for my neediness, thrown off balance by his dignity and matter-of-fact attitude.
But then he reached out and gently touched my shoulder.
It was the briefest of brushes, but there was something simultaneously reassuring and yet unsettling about it.
Reassuring in that it demonstrated that yes, my sincere apology had been accepted, and unsettling because I felt the tender absence of it as soon as his hand had moved away, and I didn’t know how to react to that.
Thankfully, Jack seemed oblivious to my confusion. He turned and gave his full attention to Hilda who was still quivering on the edge of the roof.
‘How did you get up there, old girl?’ he asked, his voice hypnotically soft.
He reached up and held his palm out towards her.
After a moment’s hesitation, she bent her nose down towards him and tentatively sniffed.
He let her carry out her inspection, then ever so gently stroked her muzzle, tracing along the line of her jaw up towards her ears.
‘I read in an article that this reminds dogs of their mothers licking their faces when they were puppies,’ he explained softly.
‘She seems to like it,’ I replied quietly, as Hilda let out a whimper.
‘If you come down here, I’ll give you a tummy rub,’ he promised her.
Hilda’s tail twitched as if she was considering his offer, but as he slowly reached towards her again, she backed up, one paw slipping off the edge of the roof.
‘Whoa,’ I said firmly. ‘Stay right where you are, girly girl. I do not want you tumbling into that smelly canal water.’
‘It’s actually quite clean, like you said when you leapt aboard after the crash. In fact, I rather enjoyed taking a dip to retrieve your sign,’ said Jack, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
‘About that…’
He shook his head. ‘Before you say anything, I was responsible for it falling in, so it was right I should sort it out. I’m only sorry I didn’t do it straight away. And I am still good for my promise to sort out the damage to the hull.’
‘Thank you,’ I repeated, feeling bad all over again about how rude I’d been to him since he arrived, but another whimper from Hilda soon concentrated my mind.
For the next couple of minutes, we both tried to coax her down, our tones ranging from wheedling to extreme excitement in case her desire not to miss out gave her the courage to put aside her fear.
‘Short of clambering up there and lifting her down, which I don’t reckon would be a pleasant experience for any of us, I think we’re going to have to get the big guns out,’ I said eventually. ‘Do you happen to have any cheese on board?’